


Sand Creek, or The Inspection of Cracks in the Desert Cecelyne

by Tikor



Category: Exalted
Genre: Fanfiction, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 18:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7584478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tikor/pseuds/Tikor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demetheus and Jasara go on an otherwordly adventure to the Demon realm of Malfeas.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Guard Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demetheus tells those assembled about his adventure with Jasara.

Ignorance is bliss when it comes to killing people. Knowing how it's done makes you realize it could be done to you pretty easy. I've got a few more tricks than the average brawler, but many of the people I care about don't. Once you know you can't forget. So I put people under my protection a little more often than I should. That explains how I found myself in this situation.

Jasara had found me drunk as a fish leaning up against a fountain in the middle of some town too small to remember. She said a spirit told her where to find me. I don't know if I want to believe her. It would be pretty creepy if it were true, being watched while you were all alone, but Jasara sounded dead serious when she said it. She had a job for me. It had sounded like a simple enough job when I took it. Stay by her side while she looked over some rocks that interested her for some reason. I don't remember what exactly because she'd started using really big words again. Jasara was pretty practical. I didn't expect her to get in a lot of trouble. And to be honest I was at kind of a low point and appreciated the company.

But I was wrong about Jasara. Probably about a number of things, upon reflection, but for this particular story about her sense of safety. Maybe having me around made her more careless. Typical non-combatant thinking. 

These rocks were famous for the silver sand that would flow between them like water from a river. Sand Creek the locals called it. When we got there, looking at the sand move in the moonlight, I could see the resemblance. I couldn't tell where the sand was coming from, the rocks took a curve around a hill and that stream of silver sand with it. Below the end of the spout was an enormous mound of sand covering the muddy ground. As I watched the sand fall the pile never got any higher, but I chalked that up to too little time spent watching.

Jasara stomped right on to the sand and stood with her nose an inch away from the sandfall. I picked up a handful and pinched it. Looked like sand to me, a little more silver than most, but just regular old sand besides that. Then Jasara split into a bunch of birds like I'd seen her do before and appeared up at the source of the sandfall. "Get up here," she told me. Like I was some kind of oaf she could command. It was about that time that I noticed the music. We were miles away from any human habitation, I was sure, so hearing music was pretty eerie. I decided I was some kind of oaf Jasara could command when it came to this otherworldly stuff, so I climbed the rock face and stood next to Jasara after a few minutes.

Up here we had a better look at the length of Sand Creek, but still couldn't see where the sand was coming from. Jasara said "It's flat," or something. I had to admit that sand usually needed some elevation to encourage a fall, but then again the wind could make sand go up if it hit a dune slope just right. I was just about to add that part when I noticed there wasn't a leaf stirring around us.

What she said next I'll never forget. "Demetheus, I want to thank you for taking me this far. I believe this is a portal to Malfeas. I'm going to walk along it to find out. You don't have to come with me... but I would feel much safer if you did."

Now, those of you who have been listening instead of falling asleep in your beer should remember that I didn't know squat about portals or other worlds or anything when compared to Jasara. I should have been dead serious. But no, not me. I thought she was going to walk around in circles in some moving sand like an idiot for days. I was carrying a week's worth of water and food strapped to my back that she had asked me to bring that I doubt she'd have been able to lift. I had a friend who wanted to have company. And I didn't have anywhere to go. So I said, "Sure thing."


	2. Sand Creek Jaunt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasara and Demetheus swap stories, chat about old friends, times past and speak of the dreams they share.

Jasara and Demetheus walked in the center of the small strip of sand breaking the verdant forest surrounding them. Leaves rustled in the wind, birds chirped, and it was altogether pleasant. But Jasara's mind was not on the lively bit of Creation surrounding her. She had started walking this path to see the prison of her dreams. She wanted to know that it still held. She wanted to know how to keep it that way. There were always cracks, but if they ever got big enough...

Demetheus' singing brought Jasara out of her gloomy introspection.

Rumbling road, see my feet roam.  
Crumbling road, hear my wheels turn.  
Singing road, hear my voice soar.  
Humble road, let me see tomorrow.  
  
Demetheus hummed several more bars, either unsure of the words or unwilling to sing them. 

Jasara remembered traveling companions singing as the circus their circlemate Faka-kun favored lumbered from town to town. Wind in particular knew a great deal of chants meant to propriate the gods, and he sung them often. Thinking of Wind always calmed her soul. She asked, "Have you seen Wind around? Last time I saw him he mentioned you."

Demetheus stopped humming, and his face became clouded. "Nope, haven't seen that blowhard, lately. Anything in particular he say?"

Jasara paraphrased, "Just that he'd wondered if you'd found your way. Y'know, after..."

Jasara knew better than to mention Kidale's name to Demetheus. But she'd gone too far anyway, she could tell from his deepened frown. That had not been her intention. She was always saying too much, telling truths that were best left unsaid. She had done it again, she knew, by Demetheus' lost cheer.

After a time of silence, Jasara thought to rouse Demetheus from his inner thoughts. She accompanied their walk with a story. "Once I read of a people of the far south. In the middle of the Glittering Desert stood a single tree taller than the tallest building of any city. Its tap-root burrowed through the entire world and was nourished by the Wyld itself." 

Demetheus laughed. "A tree in the middle of the Glittering Desert? You're pulling my leg."

Jasara knew he would believe in time. "The peoples of the tree had cut spiraling stairs in its trunk, and caves to dwell in. Mushrooms grew there and sustained them. The people of the trunk would sometimes venture down to the people of the roots, who lived off of the tree's great leavings, to trade or war with them." Demetheus looked her way, and she knew she had him in the storyteller's trance. "But for all that these people revered their home tree, Hashira, very few ever climbed its branches. The tree was so solid where the trunk ends and the branches begin that it formed an inverted cliff only the most adept climbers dared to attempt. In the canopy were every type of fruit and berry imaginable on the tree's branches, so those climbers lived their lives free from want. But the branches were so high that the air itself was thin. To adapt to their world the people of the canopy had large chests with great lungs. They grew claws on their hands and feet to latch onto branches, and webs of skin along their arms and sides and between their legs to direct their falls. The book I read said their bones were even hollow." Demetheus looked horrified. "Oh, they were people, they just looked different. Wyld barbarians, I think you would call them. The people of the trunk and the roots were more like us. Very dark skin from the pictures of this book, and odd markings they probably inflicted upon themselves, but both were people like you or I."

Jasara looked around at their surroundings. "Here we are surrounded by trees with a sliver of sand. And they were surrounded by sand with just one tree. A large tree, admittedly."

Demetheus asked, "What happened to those folks?"

Jasara thought for a moment. She didn't recall a single event of their history. The traveler who wrote the book had simply described them at a point in time. "I don't know. I couldn't say if the tree still stands, for the book was very old. Probably predating the Contagion. Which means that the Raksha probably destroyed it."

The silence between the two of them returned. 

The creek stayed a small aberration of sand in the otherwise fertile mud of the East. There seemed to be no end to it. With all the forest around them they could only see the next small segment of the twisting Sand Creek, which they plodded along by foot at an easy pace.

"So, Jasara, is there going to be some kind of door at the end of this creek? I ain't never been to Malfeas before." Demetheus was being far too flippant for the subject matter. Though that was entirely in his character, Jasara wondered how she would impress upon him the gravity of their travels. "I mean, do we gotta say Beatlejuice three times and stand on our heads or something?" Demetheus chuckled.

Jasara's words were sharp, though her slight frame showing any aggression at Demetheus' bulk was comical. "Demetheus, the five day journey to Malfeas across the sands of Cecelyne is no joking matter. Most are never seen again, and many who return do so not under their own will, but captured body and soul by Demons. It is written about as a deathwish for anyone not Exalted." Demetheus' smile hadn't lessened, so Jasara tried again. "The beings trapped there gave pause to The Unconquered Sun himself. They made the world and now they've been broken and chained and they aren't happy about it."

That at least got the brawler's attention. But if Jasara had meant to instill caution she missed; instead Demetheus' anticipation was clear in his voice. "Well, if it's so bad over there, why do you want to go? Got some heads to crack?"

Jasara looked at her sandy feet, keeping pace at two steps to Demetheus' one. "My summoning skills are minimal at best. Everyone's so frightened by demons that I hear tales of burnt books more often than I find useful diagrams or the capabilities or nature of Demons." She balled her fists. Letting Demons become mere legends was dangerous ignorance. They were certainly keeping all three lidless eyes on Creation from between the bars of their cage. "Their obscurity is frustrating, so I decided to do some first hand research."

Demetheus drawled as he scanned the undergrowth for the 152nd time that day. "That doesn't sound like you, Jasara. Somebody has a book somewhere, you just haven't found it yet."

"What I have read tells me in Malfeas there is a great Demon city filled with more Demons than are written of in all the books of the world. There they are bathed in green light from their green sun that knows no night, baking the sands of Cecelyne. They are ordered by the laws and judges of that desert and the hierarchy of She Who Lives in Her Name. They swim in Kimbery, the Sea that Marched Against the Flame, and frolic through the forests of Szoreny. They fear the Ebon Dragon in their hearts and the Silent Wind Adorjan in their skies." 

"Doesn't sound like a very nice place. No wonder nobody cares to write about it."

Jasara didn't know if Demetheus understood her epistemology. To Jasara there were no unknowns, only the temporarily hidden. The sooner revealed, the sooner that knowledge could benefit humanity. Or safeguard it, as her dreams urged her to do. "That may be true. But I can't afford to wait. I wish to know my enemy." 

"That, I get."

"And my slaves."

"Well, that's reasonable."

"And I dream about it."

Demetheus winced. "Jasara, I get those kind of dreams too. I know a lot of them are nice and they have a sheen of glory to them, but... I think we shouldn't bring them all back." Demetheus shot her a look, and she didn't like the pity she saw there. "I mean, every one of those kinds of dreams I have I seem to be killing somebody. Sure, it's useful. I've learned a few things... but I don't want to be that guy." Demetheus looked like he wanted to say more, forming words in his muscular jaw that didn't quite make it to sound, so Jasara waited. A few steps later Demetheus said, "I'd like to be known for helping people, not killing them. I like to think the big guy feels the same way."

Jasara gave Demetheus a thoughtful frown and a raised eyebrow at the peaceful statement from the Dawn Caste. All her readings on that kind of Solar indicated that they practically lived for battle. Jasara had seen Demetheus exult through battle before against the glass spiders of Chiaroscuro, smiling as shards of his crushed opponents bounced harmlessly off his skin. That he could set that aspect of himself aside for a larger goal, one much more in line with her own, was a pleasant surprise. Her esteem of him grew a notch. 

But this journey, where they were going, was no place to be soft. "Demetheus, we once cataloged every threat to Creation. It proved useful, as repeatedly the defenses of reality were tested. From what I remember, from what I read, from what I dream... we're nowhere near as prepared as we should be any more. I- we need to know what's out there, what they're capable of, what they're planning. We cannot simply walk through life thinking it will all work out, fun as that may be." Jasara recalled her time in Chiaroscuro running through the ruins before her second breath. How blissfully unaware and lucky she had been! "That kind of thinking lead to the Contagion and the Balorian Crusade. I will not have nine of every ten people die to some disease we Solars could have prevented. I will not have the world unmade by the Raksha because they harbor some eternal grudge. And, dammit! Those Demons are staying in their cage." 

Jasara looked over to Demetheus, and saw his confusion. Several of the references had clearly gone over his head. 

"You lost me again."

Jasara sighed and got to the point. "It's going to be a grand time to go crack some Demon heads."

"You know how to get on a guy's good side!"

The sun's brightness had dimmed as they talked. Here in the forest a long twilight was the norm as the canopy gradually sapped the last light from the sky. Jasara loved this time of day, but as a Copper Spider, that came as no surprise. Despite her tired legs she felt the need to keep trying to edify her companion on how she saw the world, but she knew once the sun passed the horizon that this burst of energy would fade. And securing their nightly trappings in the dark was no fun. "Demetheus, let's make camp." Then Jasara remembered, "But we must have our feet in the sand while we sleep. And no watch tonight."

"Aye, aye, captain."

The first night Demetheus ate deeply and drank much. He told Jasara stories from his days as a prizefighter. She wasn't amused by the brutality. Rather she was interested in the complicated gambling wagers and their relative odds which she questioned Demetheus about between the foes and fighting styles that he described in detail. 

They both laid out their thin sleeping rolls on the banks of Sand Creek and slept the sleep of the well exerted. 

They awoke under the mad green sun of Malfeas, the third circle soul known as Ligier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to The MG for Hashira.


	3. Surrounded by Cecelyne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demetheus tells the story of his first day in Malfeas.

So there I was, in Malfeas. Never thought I'd see the day. I always thought Lethe would get me after I was a little too slow on a dodge. I'd seen a number of my friends go down that way in Chariscuro and a lot of enemies. Life is cheap on the streets. I'm still not used to the idea of living for centuries. I just take it one day at a time.

That day, at first, I thought we'd been hoodwinked by some spirit and this was all a joke or some odd sanctum. I'd always heard Mafleas was were all the Demons were after the Dragon-Blooded put them there, except when some sorcerer calls 'em out. I expected to be surrounded by them. Instead, Jasara and I were alone in the middle of a desert. The sand was the same silver color as that little creek we followed the previous day.

She kept going on about shadows. Neither of us were casting one. She had me lift my foot a dozen times at different heights, waving her hand under it and muttering about it being impossible that the light was coming from above and below at the same time. She cupped her hands over her face. Then she scolded me for laughing at her. Hah. I can still remember how ridiculous she looked.

I finally asked her if this was really Malfeas. She said that it was and it wasn't, more like a limbo between Creation and Malfeas that she called 'the desert Cecelyne'. "We'll see the Demon city at the end of the fifth day," she said. I didn't know how she'd figured that out if she'd never been here before, but I knew Jasara well enough to know that she thought she had it all straight in her head when she used that tone of voice. When she was unsure about something she'd explain what she still didn't understand if you gave her the time and your ear.

So we set off. 

The sky was black, so we had no stars to guide us. The green sun stayed in the same place near the horizon all day, so that didn't help any. The silver sand looked the same in every direction, not a landmark in sight. That didn't stop Jasara; she set off at the same pace we set walking the stream yesterday. I never did figure out how she knew which way to go, she just said, "We're headed the right way," when I asked about it.

We stopped for a drink not too long after we started. Jasara had already sweat through her clothes in a few spots. That green light was everywhere, hot on your skin even under your clothes. When she passed me the waterskin back I just hung it on our pack and shouldered it. I told her I wasn't thirsty when she asked me about it.

I kept seeing the sand shifting in the distance. They looked like little critters, but every time I watched one it would turn into sand just a bit later, falling down into a little pile. Now I've seen little water spirits, and sand elementals. I've even seen 'em walk or fly into nothing at all. But I've never seen them leave their whole bodies behind like that. It reminded me how different this place was every time. It got me to wondering just what type of critters that sand could turn into.

The wind blew in our faces constantly, dusting us up. We were steadily thumping the sand with our feet, slogging away, clothes over our mouths for most of the day.

Sometime in the day, damn green sun hadn't moved so I didn't know when, we heard a rumbling and the sand began to shake under our feet. It kept getting worse so I took my fighting stance and started turning slow circles to see what was coming. Jasara saw it first as it crested a dune and slammed back down to the sand. It was this monster of a worm, with the front end full of teeth and a tongue lolling out between 'em. It was somehow still wet even in the desert, like it just jumped out of the sea. 

It was twirling its body to move on the sand, about as fast as I can run, so I didn't think we could outrun it. Instead I faced it and waited, watching it dash across the desert in a straight line. Funny thing was, that straight line wasn't headed for us. I don't think it even noticed us. It just passed on by, the rumbling growing dimmer and the sand getting stiller. 

Jasara brought out this little book and started writing furiously. She drew a picture, damn accurate, of the thing just like when we first saw it, jumping that dune. I was mostly watching the desert for anything else weird to waltz by, but the few glances I stole of her book showed me a lot of symbols I didn't understand and one I did over and over - question marks. 

I honestly thought we might go chasing the thing when she was done with her writing trance, but after she blew on the ink and sprinkled some sand on the pages she apologized, and set off again in the same direction we were going before.

We took a good many other breaks that day, but I noticed how much water she needed and what seemed like a week's worth looking like it'd have a hard time stretching to ten days. So I begged off any water for myself, and had a dry cracker or two just to be sociable. When we stopped to make camp she confronted me about it.

She said something like, "Demetheus, I've been drinking every time we stop and I'm still parched. Have a sip with me." I gave her the same wave and frown with a small shake of the head I had already given her a dozen times that day, telling her to go right on and drink her fill, that I'd drank plenty yesterday and that I really wasn't thirsty.

That's when I saw the gears turning in her head. She wouldn't let it go. She told me her conclusion as soon as it clicked for her. "Demetheus, no matter how much you drank last night, with your hundreds of pounds of muscle, you'd still need water by now. Tell me what's really going on."

Now she's my circlemate, Jasara is. I knew when Jasara got this way, used that phrase, that I'd have to say something more. Trouble was, I didn't really understand it myself. So I did my best and told her that ever since I was 'blessed by the Sun' as she liked to call it, whenever I found myself between towns I just don't seem to get thirsty. Or hungry, either. I tried not to look Jasara in the face too much when I said it. If I was too open about it, I'd be telling her every trip I'd ever made where I forgot to eat and drink for a day, and I wanted to get some sleep that night. I tried to end the conversation by saying, "I still like food, and especially drink, it's just I don't need it like I used to."

I turned back to her, to see if that worked, and, I'm not making this up, Jasara's eyes were on fire with Essence. She looked like she was seeing straight through to my soul, and honestly it was a little spooky. She didn't blink for a long time, which didn't settle my nerves none. Just about when I was going to pipe up again, she told me I'd learned a variation of the Tireless Sentinel Technique. 

I asked her if that was enough questions before bed, and if she'd have the first watch tonight. I knew she'd be awake writing in that journal about my 'technique' or whatever, so I might as well sleep. Jasara pulled out that little book of hers and agreed to take first watch.

Jasara, though, she's always got one more question. Don't you believe her when she says she has one more question cause your answer will cause her to think of two. She asked me if on these walks between places if I needed to sleep either. Like we were in one of them fancy teahouses of Nexus asking about how well I liked my huge bed as big as a bar, not in the middle of a desert asking about being awake for days like some sort of god.

But you know what, I'd never thought about it, so I took a moment to do so as I laid out the mats. There'd be no fire that night, of course. And I had to admit that sleep was something I'd done without a number of times, too. I told her it was the same story as food and drink. I don't particularly need to sleep, but I like to. 

To stop her from asking her two more questions after her one more question I asked her a question first. See, with Jasara if you can get her explaining something that's the best way to get her off some topic she's questioning you about. I asked, "About this 'journey'. You're still keen on seeing the city? I can't see anything, and I reckon from the top of this dune I can see dozens of miles off."

That's when she got all spooky on me again. She's all dead serious, telling me, "While we are in the Demon realm you cannot trust your eyes and ears alone, Demetheus." Like I'm some kind of kid who doesn't know how to stay out of the priest's shrine. She goes on, "Anyone we meet, anything we see, any noise we hear, could be an illusion crafted to suit the Demons who dwell here."

Jasara told me again that it'll take five days. She assured me that we'd make it. Then her face got a lot friendlier, and she smiled at me for the first time that day. She said, "I'm glad you're with me. This would be much harder to endure alone. Mentally and physically."

And that got me to thinking. We're all on a journey and it's often harder when you're alone. Some people got crazy ideas to journey to Malfeas, or climb the Imperial Mountain or sail out West till the water turns into the Wyld. The rest of us are just taking the road where it goes, every day walking the path in front of them. I was glad to have my friend Jasara with me, and glad to hear she appreciated my help. I'm telling you, that was the best sleep I've had then or since. Didn't matter what tomorrow was going to bring.


	4. The Oasis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The desert breaks to reveal a pool, fruit bearing trees, and company.

The third day they found an Oasis. And they weren't the first ones. A caravan had impossibly stopped there already. 

As Jasara and Demetheus approached the wind died down, broken by the tropical trees bearing date fruit and coconut. The pool sparkled in the green light, breaking it into rainbows at the edge of vision. Several wagons with yeddim lying next to them were clustered about the pool in an arc. 

Someone was banging a drum and singing a song in Old Realm, of all things. Jasara couldn't place the dialect. Several of the people had their feet in the water or were bathing naked in the pool. When they saw the pair of Solars in the distance, they waved.

"They seem like a friendly bunch." Demetheus wore a wan smile.

One of the figures broke off from the rest and approached the Solar pair. She was short, under 5 feet, and skinnier even than Jasara. Jasara would have taken her for a child if she didn't have the hips of a woman and the confidence of an adult in her walk. Her hair was black, her skin a dark brown, ashen with flakes of dead skin in a few places most prone to the sun like her nose, cheeks and shoulders. Her garb was a simple cloth wrapped around her torso and waist, baring most of her legs above her bare feet.

Jasara was immediately cynical of the creature. Despite her human appearance, the differentiated sun-exposure on her skin rang a false note in her mind. The green sun shone evenly here, if anything her nose and cheeks should be doing better than the rest of her. 

"Welcome, welcome! We have seen none of your kind in some time!" The language was impossibly her and Demetheus' home dialect of Firetongue spoken in Chiaroscuro.

Hearing such familiar syllables put Demetheus at ease. He wasn't nearly as cautious. "Yup, we're a striking pair. Say, your mom or dad wouldn't happen to be around, would they, kid? We wouldn't want any hard feelings from enjoying this little oasis with you."

Jasara opened her mouth to warn Demetheus of her hunch, but no opening in the conversation arose.

"Our mother is over there, you see across the camp?" The young woman, still smiling, pointed across the water to a gathering that looked religious in nature. The central figure had an azure-trimmed robe and was reading from a book. It covered her entire body, her hair, her feet and everything inbetween, in the same silver as the sand. Jasara had seen that dress on the priests of one of the hundred gods' heresy cults in the deep south, but she couldn't quite remember which one. Or maybe she read it?

Demetheus barged right along. "I see her. And where is your father?"

The creature was momentarily confused. She lost her smile and found a flat expression, then hazarded a guess. "You mean our lord? He went to the shadows in the city to try and find a way out of this place."

Shadows? But, Jasara hadn't seen a shadow anywhere in the desert. She'd have to look out in the city for one. Maybe the substance that cast shadows in Malfeas was different than the motonic expressions of shape that did so in Creation... She was getting sidetracked. She decided that she had to warn Demetheus before he got himself into trouble.

"Thank you, kindly, miss. What's your name?" _Damn his kindness, it would be rude to interrupt an introduction._

"You can call me Mikonos. My friends call me The Shore. Will you be my friend, Demetheus?" Her innocent smile dropped years from Jasara's estimation of her age. If she were human, that was. 

"Well, I sure will. That is if you introduce me to your sister in the pool there-"

Jasara barked at her partner while she had the chance. "Demetheus! A word, please."

"Jasara, can't you see I'm being friendly?" Demetheus turned to look at Jasara for the first time since the caravan member approached, and saw how worried she looked. "We'll just be a bit, Shorey."

They both retraced a few steps while Mikonos held her ground where they had met. Jasara spared her a glance to see if she was following, not wanting to turn her back on her and also not wanting to be overheard. 

"Demetheus, do you remember what I told you about how things appear and what they really might be while we're here?" Jasara waited a moment like her teachers had always done when they asked her to regurgitate a lesson.

Demetheus looked at her, not dumbly, exactly, but certainly without the answer. "Nope, can't say that I do, Jasara." He smiled at her to soften his words, "You do say quite a lot of things."

"That it could be an illusion, Demetheus. An illusion." Not that she had any solid evidence, but when it came to demons it paid to be cautious about the wards first, and say the summoning words second. 

"Now, Jasara, I might be taking it too easy, I admit that I might. But you might be paranoid, letting this place get under your skin from all the reading you've done. I gotta wonder how many of them Demon stories are just easily spooked folks writing down camp stories about that one time their great uncle met a demon." 

"Demetheus, Demon summoning is an ancient and learned tradition with records stretching back to the First Age. No less a scholar than Devon had extensive writings with first hand accounts! It's not just-"

Demetheus interrupted her. "I've never heard of a David sorcerer. So let's do this, if you can tell me which demon little Mikonos is over there, I'll believe you and we'll leave this place right now. But if you can't, I say we spend the night here, fill up the waterskins and have more than a few dates and coconuts before we head out." Demethus was using his most reasonable voice. "It'd be a waste to let a windfall like this pass us by out here in the desert."

Jasara wracked her memory. She'd never read of a Mikonos before, or any demon whose hierarchy mentioned The Shore, or anything about an oasis, or dates or coconuts or a caravan. She'd heard of Makarios, The Sigil's Dreamer, but Makarios was always depicted as a man, and he had a market, not a caravan. _Oh, come on! This is an arbitrary test!_

"Demetheus, I have never heard of a Demon by the name of Mikonos, or go by a title called The Shore, but hear me out! How many caravan girls give themselves titles? Out here in the green sun, why would some parts of her be more sunburnt than others, especially those more prone to sun exposure! And don't you think it is a little suspect that she speaks exactly our dialect of Firetongue?!"

Jasara had a little voice in her head, the one that always played the devil's advocate, telling her not to fool herself on the path to the truth. It said that she knew very few caravan girls, being the daughter of a Guild Factor put her above their company. They could give themselves nicknames in Old Realm and she'd never have heard of it. She also didn't know how long this caravan had been here, perhaps they were sunburnt by Creation's sun and had not been exposed to Ligier's light long enough to bear consistent markings. And Chiaroscuro was a mercantile city-state, sending caravans out across the desert regularly; it was possible one had lost their way into Cecelyne. 

Demethus just crossed his big arms in front of his muscular chest and frowned down at her. "Jasara, go wash up. I'll be breaking open a coconut and sharing it with Mikonos, just over there." Then he turned and walked off. 

Jasara watched him go. She wanted to keep trying to convince him, but to do so in front of Mikonos would be the height of improper. And she had to admit she had a flimsy argument; repeating it would not strengthen it. She looked out at the caravan's people, seemingly peaceful. She knocked her knuckles on one of the trees. It was solid. Its leaves were green and broad, all coming from the trunk, like those she had seen in tropical places in Creation. She wondered how it survived on Ligier's green light. Surely the plants would have some sort of adaptation to that different nourishment? She was getting sidetracked again. 

Demetheus had cracked a coconut and attracted a crowd. He wedged out the meat of the fruit with his knife, handing chunks to waiting hands. He was laughing at something they said or did around mouth full of coconut. One of the bathers walked out of the pool, a young woman, tall and buxom, and cut ahead of the rest to stand by Demetheus' side. Demetheus handed her the next slice of coconut, which she popped in her mouth before grabbing both his large hands and pulling him towards the pool. He got up and followed her in, of course. They both drank from the pool. Demetheus found a way to simultaneously quench his thirst and drink in her bent over form with his eyes. The water and the coconut hadn't seemed to affect him, which was encouraging. The woman affecting him went without saying. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it on the shore. 

Jasara concluded that washing would be worth the risk. She walked over to the pool and smelled the water. It smelled fresh, like groundwater. It looked odd, with green reflections, but the different sun explained that. She experimentally dipped a finger in the water. When she raised her hand to sniff it closer, it passed as harmless water to her senses once again. Jasara lowered her hand and refocused her eyes, and that's when she saw the figure in the full silver robe and azure trim, Mikonos named her mother, stare directly at her for a brief moment before launching back into her sermon. That's when it all clicked.

 _The silver robe with azure trim, the focus on religion, the completely concealed form, out here in the middle of the desert! It **must** be Cecelyne! Mikonos must be some soul of hers, which is why she was confused about her father! The Shore, damn it_ of course _Cecelyne would have such a soul come out to greet us, to take us into her camp. She wants to engulf everything. I have to get out of here. I have to get Demetheus!_

Jasara hopped into the water herself, sandals and all, headed straight for Demetheus and his paramour. Several of the caravan were giggling at the scene, assuming she was jealous. Jasara called out, "Demetheus! Demetheus! Get your clothes back on, we're leaving!"

Demetheus must have heard her, but he didn't turn his head. Instead he lifted the woman over his shoulder and started walking out into the depths of the oasis pool. The woman's possessive smile gave Jasara haste. She began swimming as the water deepened, but her sandals slowed her stroke. 

She finally caught up and tapped Demetheus on his far shoulder. The woman on his other shoulder gave her a quick frown before being twisted away by Demetheus turning to see his employer. "Jasara, what are you doing in here with your clothes on?"

Jasara tried to sound as commanding as she could while treading water. "Demetheus, I've been yelling at you from across the pool. That you couldn't hear me confirms the magical nature of this place. I do not think it is safe here any longer. Please pack our things and leave with me."

Demetheus gave Jasara a sheepish smile. "Jasara, I was just getting to the good part."

She had to reason with him, to break whatever influence he may already be under. "Tell me, Demetheus, do you normally take the women you meet at oases to the deepest part of the pool for... the good part... when an array of tents are along the shore?"

This confused Demetheus. With his eyebrows furrowed Jasara thought she was finally getting through to his caution when she noticed the woman on his shoulder wiggling down a little, apparently touching him where she couldn't see. His face relaxed again. This called for drastic measures.

Jasara took a breath, dropped to the bottom of the pool, then pushed off the floor, kicked her feet and spread her arms. The momentum of the jump and stroke threw her above the water, high enough to land a solid open-handed strike on the behind of Demetheus' willing captive.

It let out an inhuman snarl, then twisted impossibly back along itself to stare at Jasara in a way no human spine would tolerate. Demetheus tossed it a dozen yards, where it splashed in the pool with an indignant yelp.

Jasara yelled to Demetheus and pointed to the group of Demons in human form he'd shared coconut with moments earlier. "The packs!"

Mikonos started running for the packs, her small feet padding the sand. The rest watched Demetheus dart from the pool, the wake of his speed tossing and splashing Jasara, beating their small greeter there. As he shouldered the packs Mikonos lunged for them, missing. Jasara rose from the pool to hear her shouting in Old Realm to the rest.

"Take their food and water! They'll beg us to stay! It's in the -mphh"

Demetheus silenced her with a single hand over her entire face, forcing her jaws together and picking her up as he ran. Jasara sputtered out the last of the water so that it wouldn't interfere with her next words. 

"Stormwind Rider!"

A gust of wind picked Jasara up, then overtook Demetheus, lifting them both in the air. With their feet buoyed above the sand by the wind they sped away. It felt like a clean escape until Mikonos bit Demetheus' hand. He cried out and dropped her. Jasara's spell knew Mikonos as a stowaway, blowing according to her will, dropping the child-woman in the ever-present sand.

Looking back to spot any pursuit Jasara saw a storm cloud rising over the oasis. The pool's water thrust into the air, and where droplets should be only sand fell against the ground. All the leaves were ripped from the trees in the viciousness of it. A thick smoke rose to seed then feed a cloud above the once-oasis, fattening it from nothing to a thunderhead.

Demetheus winced, and the sound brought Jasara back to her surroundings. She willed the wind to bring her closer and took his one large hand in both of hers. Impossibly, the wound had already festered; it was coated with black sand. Demetheus began to hack, then his gorge rose and into the whirling winds surrounding them he released silver sand. Jasara mentally noted the phenomenon, which was much more pleasant than expected.

The rest of the day Jasara spent watching the cloud behind them, worried about Demetheus, carried along by an occult wind. When finally the spell expired, Jasara carefully washed out Demetheus' poor hand with a bit of their water. She dared not use any sand, its connection to Cecelyne might only strengthen whatever ailed him. 

"Hey, now, don't use too much of that on me. You're gonna need it on the trip back."

Jasara just smiled at Demetheus. It was an absurd boast. They hadn't even made it to Malfeas yet. Jasara had no idea how to cure an infection from a Demon she had never heard of before. They had in all likelihood just assaulted two souls of the very desert they were surrounded by. And Demetheus was worried about her getting too thirsty.

"Demetheus, like you say, one day at a time. You get some rest. I have some writing to do."

Jasara pulled out her little notebook, warded against water it was no worse for wear, and shook the sand off of it. Then she opened to the first blank page and wrote "Mikonos, of the soul hierarchy of Cecelyne, also known as The Shore, of an unknown circle but likely second or third due to her individual personality and bites that cause instant infection..."

Demetheus laid out the sleeping rolls one-handed and collapsed on one. She heard him snore before she'd reached the second page.


	5. Wrath of the Desert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demetheus tussles some Demons. Jasara goes for a ride.

I tell ya, I was half asleep on my feet. I don't remember this part of the story very well. We were in this sandstorm, but it wasn't a simple dustup, this one. It was raining sand. I know it sounds crazy. I asked Jasara if I was going crazy. She said I wasn't, that she saw the white sand raining from the sky, too. Like the lightest, driest hail you've ever been in. But it just kept coming.

It was impossible to keep my hand clean. I'd left my shirt back at the oasis. Sand was everywhere, and that meant it was in that nasty gash that little lady gave me. It throbbed and felt like I was carrying one of those ship barrels one-handed. Jasara kept giving me and my hand these worried looks, and that didn't calm me down any. But to be honest a little nerves probably helped me through that day. Without a little jolt I might have just sat down and gone to sleep, and I'd be in that desert still.

Jasara and I used a bit of rope to tie our waists together when the storm started dropping our visibility real low. She'd be out ahead, alert for threats, while I stumbled along behind. Every once and a while she'd tug on the rope, telling me she'd be turning a little bit. I still never figured out how she knew where to go, bugs me still sometimes. But then again my feet tell me when to leave a place from time to time and when to stay, so I guess we all have our sense of direction when we're in our element. 

Hail, hail, hail. Walk, walk, walk. Pretty boring story, it would be, 'cept for what happened next. Jasara's tugging on the rope. It's always three tugs so I can tell it's her. Well, one tug happens then the rope goes limp. So I tug back, and the end of the rope comes back my way, twisting by my feet.

I panic and start running. I know that's not what you're supposed to do, but you gotta remember I wasn't at my best. I'm calling out, "Jasara!" into the storm, figuring maybe she can hear me if she can't see me. I hear her call back, "Demetheus! Over here!"

So I go that way, of course. What else would I do? But when I get there I don't see her light skin and hair, instead I see dark hair and dark skin, and someone much shorter. And damn if it isn't that little Demon, Mikonos. 

She's smiling at me, looking at my swollen hand like she's ready to eat it. Maybe she was. I'm not in the mood for games, so I tell her, "Give me Jasara back, and maybe I'll forgive your little kiss." I do think I have a bit of poetry in me sometimes, simple words and all. But this was the wrong audience, I'll tell you that.

She finally looks up to my eyes. "I do not have your 'Jasara'. My sister does. But I will have you!" Then she lunges at me, 90 pounds of demonic fury, with this black mouth spitting sand something fierce.

I dodge whatever spit was flying out of her face and launch a hook with my busted hand, giving it way too much commitment. I couldn't slow the damn hand down, it was so heavy. She dodges it, naturally, so with my good arm I pull back an elbow that catches her in the chest and she goes down hard, bouncing off the sand, skidding away from me.

Now anything normal that size wouldn't have gotten back up again. But I left normal at the start of this story, I hope you're getting the trend. The sand rises where she falls, picking her back up to her feet, and showering over her. She shakes it out, and starts spitting at me again. I figure I can't dodge them all, and I got one hand that's already busted, so I dodge what I can and hack the rest out of the sky with my swollen hand. I didn't feel it at the time; battle has a way of doing that to me and my nerves.

I feint another hook, and she buys it, jumping up. She's thinking she can rain down from above or something. But I check the feint and grab her little foot with my good hand, slamming her down on the sand again, but this time I've got a good hold. I put my sandal on her face to make sure all that spit's going away from me, then I just go to town with that busted two ton hand of mine.

My hand splits open before the Demon does. The first bite never closed up, which is saying something cause these days most any wound scabs right over after a good night's rest. Then those shots I blocked cut a few more openings. But even though I'm bleeding all over the place I don't have any other options. One foot's keeping my balance, the other foot has her face in line and my good hand's got a hold of her foot to keep the rest of her from doing anything tricky. So I just keep smashing her with that busted hand. And finally, she gives. Splits right in half and instead of blood and guts, she's got this wet black sand inside. 

The spookiest thing, the thing that still keeps me up wondering at night from time to time, is that this whole time I've got her pinned, she's struggling like you'd expect. Trying to kick me with her free foot, scratching at my legs. But she's not screaming. She's not yelling. She's laughing. Like she's having a grand old time, best night out in ages. I like a good fight as much as the next fella, probably more, but when I'm losing that bad I have a hard time enjoying myself. I didn't and don't understand, and the more I talk about it the less I want to understand. That's something Jasara and I never have seen eye to eye on, trying to understand Demons, that is. 

Two things happened after that. One, my busted hand starting feeling a lot better real quick. It got lighter, the swelling went down, and my head cleared quite a bit. It still looked like I'd put it through a smithy's shop, beaten and smeared with black sand, but it was a normal kind of hurt. Two, the white sand stopped falling from the sky. Instead, it started gathering, until it turned into a shape I recognized a little too well. It was that lady from the Oasis, the one that I wandered off with, that Jasara smacked.

Once it was the right size, skin popped over the sand, and hair exploded from her scalp. I'd say more about it, but by this point it was starting to make a strange kind of sense, so I just rolled with it. She still didn't have any clothes on, maybe she didn't believe in them. When you're made of sand, I guess clothes don't mean much. I still hadn't seen sight of Jasara since the rope broke, so I decided to do some talking first.

I say to her, "Sorry about tossing you and stepping out at the pool. Maybe after this is all over we can try that again when Jasara isn't around?" Or some damn thing. Just as well, though, cause she doesn't let on that she understood a single word. She just spreads both hands and more sand jumps up and becomes a sword and dagger, both curved and sharp as Chariscuro glass from the look of 'em. 

I'm a little worn out from my last little match, but I notice I'm not glowing yet, so I still have a lot of fight in me. With my busted hand feeling nice and fast again, I honestly felt better going into this fight than the first one. She rushes me just like she was telegraphing the moment those blades showed up, so of course I'm not anywhere near where she puts that sword. I'm ready for the dagger, grabbing her wrist and snapping it.

It made a pop like you'd expect, but then she just twists her wrist like nothing's wrong, glancing me with the dagger. That sword's coming back around so I let go and jump back, staying out of its way. She just shakes her dagger hand and it's good as new. Seeing that I knew it was time for some real tricks.

She's not letting me keep any distance, stepping up with that sword, going for my legs and chest. So I watch and dodge and watch and dodge. Then when she gets a little repetitive I reach out and clap that sword between both hands and jump up to give her temple a little kick.

Well, that sends her spinning. She must have been trying to jump when that kick landed cause she's just floating and spinning in front of me when my kick-foot lands back on the ground. She gets the bright idea to throw the dagger from upside down, but I'm not some kid learning the ropes; I had eyes on those weapons. I flick it away to the sand. I've still got all this momentum from the spin in my jumpkick, and my other foot takes it, between this crazy, beautiful sand Demon and the dunes she's made of. Launched her right up into the air.

While she's spinning up there I jump up and crack her back down into the sand. The storm's gone by this time, but this loud thunder rips across the desert. Most times before then when I pulled that trick I thought it was some storm I just couldn't see, but out there in the desert you could see so far there was no way I'd missed one. That was my fist making that sound, I'm not lying. Sometimes, when I get a little out of sorts, I hear that sound in my head before anything even goes down. Most times it snaps me back, telling me that I'm going to make a right mess of whatever place I'm in if I don't calm down. But there was this one time when I went with it...

Anyway, that's another story. This crack lands, and it's a good time to have that trick around. She hits the sand so hard that she just explodes. White sand everywhere. 

But now I've got a problem. I don't have anybody to ask where Jasara's at. I'm covered in this slimy black sand, with another layer of white sand over that, blood most everywhere, and glowing like a bonfire. My bad hand's still bleeding into the sand. I spare a thought to make it stop. Then I just sit down and think about what I'm going to do next.

I hadn't thought through to what I was about yet when I hear this wind coming up on my back. Didn't feel it, but sure heard it. It sounded just like yesterday, when Jasara left that Oasis in a hurry with me in tow. So I turn around, but I don't see anything. Still hear it, though. At this point I'm just hoping it's not some other Demon looking for another tussle.

Then Jasara just drops right out of the sky. Delicate as some flower hitting a lake, she steps from her little whirlwind to the sand and dusts herself off. She looks right at me, takes in what a mess I am, and she says, "Your hand looks considerably better. What did you do?"

That's Jasara for you. Always asking about the thing she understands the least first. So, when we get to walking, I tell her the same story I just told you. Leaving out the parts about her, of course. She asks all about the sand I'm covered in that isn't silver, and the way that Demon just formed out of the white sand that was raining all day, and all the rest of it. And that's how we spent the rest of the day, question and answer, until she sat down to write it all down in her little book and I rested up for tomorrow.


	6. Malfeas, Demon City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of the five day journey and the beginning of demonic exploration.

At the end of the fifth day Jasara stepped upon the basalt streets of Malfeas. Brass and iron buildings crowded both sides in twisted architecture seen nowhere in Creation. Jasara was overwhelmed. "Demetheus, have you ever seen the like before? Of course you haven't. Isn't this incredible? I didn't think a structure like this could even stand! And the geomantic resonance! It's not just this building, like a Manse, Demetheus. Oh, Demetheus! The pattern stretches across all the buildings in some kind of prayer-concentration matrix! I can't wait to see where the focus is!"

When Demetheus stepped over the precipice, he shouted and ripped the small scabbard from his pants, dropping it. His knife had melted and burned a hole through his garment.

"Did I forget to mention that you shouldn't bring steel to the Demon city?"

"Yes, Jasara, you did forget."

Demetheus shook his burnt hand and looked around at the empty city. "Awful quiet around here."

Jasara took a moment to listen and all she heard was a distant wind. "Adorjan may have swept through recently. Just sing something while I look around!"

Jasara ran ahead and used her cold iron knife to chip a jagged piece of protruding Malfean iron off of one of the buildings, banging it with the hilt. She looked like she was collecting butterflies, eyes filled with wonder. Demetheus sang a song.

"Once was a woman with a man in her house  
They fought and yelled and slapped and groused  
She couldn't take it anymore so she kicked him right out  
Ho ho, shimmy shimmy, then she kicked him right out."

Jasara had moved on to chipping the basalt street. "Louder!"

Demetheus increased his volume. 

"Down to the pub went the man of the house  
He drank and sang and laughed and cried  
Till he fell off his chair and they rolled him outside!  
Ho ho, shimmy shimmy, I tell you no lie. 

Jasara went inside a building and called out, "Doing great! Oh, this support beam is all there is?"

"The woman calmed down, alone in the house  
She sat at the window, eyes downcast  
Along came another man to cheer her up  
Ho ho, shimmy shimmy, it happens that fast!

Jasara took the stairs up to what she thought would be the second level, but there was only a wall at the top. Apparently the second floor was solid basalt with a coating of iron on the outside. She wondered what purpose that could possibly serve, and wondered again how so much weight could be held aloft by such little support.

Jasara came back down the stairs, still contemplating the demonic architecture. Demetheus had stopped singing. "Where did you learn that song?"

"On the road, someplace."

Jasara frowned at Demetheus. Sometimes he could be maddeningly vague, and she didn't know if he did it just to stymie her curiosity or if he truly didn't have the answers. Answers or no, being too quiet in Malfeas was dangerous, so she tried to get him singing again. "Do you know The Five Princes?"

"No."

"Do you know The Queen's Spirit?"

"Nope"

Just how uneducated was he? "Do you know any song of geopolitical or historical importance? Don't answer that. Do you know The Merchant and the Dinar?"

"Yeah, I know that one. But probably not the version you're thinking of."

Before Jasara could inquire about the versions of The Merchant and the Dinar, Demetheus interrupted her with a question of his own. "Say, who do you think used to pray here, and to what god?"

To Jasara, it was obvious. "Demons of all types. But they prayed to no god. It could have been a third circle Demon, or even a Yozi, based on the size of this place. I'm not familiar enough with their natures to backfigure the target based on the architecture, but that's why we're here, after all."

Demetheus looked disgusted. "And now they're all dead?"

Jasara wondered where this morbid line of thought was going, but humored her companion. At least they were making noise. "Most, but probably not all."

"Just because they were praying to the wrong Demon?"

Jasara gave that a thought. Would praying to Adorjan have spared them? Would praying to another Demon or Yozi who would care enough to keep the Silent Wind away have been protection enough? It was hard to say. "Perhaps."

Demetheus crossed his arms, and checked the corners of their surroundings with a flick of his head. "Back in Creation, anytime I ran across somebody getting too fancy about prayers it usually meant some people with their faces in the mud being exploited. Sounds like it's no different here."

Jasara had read and heard her fair share of blasphemy, but disrespecting prayer itself was a new one to her. "Demetheus, not all prayers are answered, or even heard. And some spirits do extort their worshipers. But many, many good things have come from prayer. It is our connection to the divine. Praising the gods strengthens them. Letting the gods know our troubles, our hopes and our fears keeps them connected to the human condition. And that breeds the empathy Creation needs in its keepers to remain well suited to humanity."

Demetheus relaxed; his arms fell back to his sides. "I'd never thought of it that way."

Jasara was glad to have expanded Demetheus' worldview. "I want to check the next building. Just sing anything. Maybe a prayer song?"

Demetheus nodded and began to think. Jasara turned from him and began walking to the next building. She heard him say quietly, "Conky, I know we don't talk to often, but if you could look over Jasara and me till we make it back to your sky, hopefully in one piece each, I sure would appreciate it."

That was when the buildings started to shake.


	7. Cityquake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demetheus gets separated, then found.

I don't pray very often. Yeah, I know there's gods all around. But there's people all around too, and everybody's got a little suffering they're trying to work through. They pray all the time, and it doesn't seem to help them none. Back on the streets of Chiaroscuro, with the other orphan kids, some of them would pray so hard every night that their parents would come back for them. They'd pray for food, pray for safety, pray for a purpose. They'd pray to any god they could remember and some they just made up. But come morning what we had was each other, and all those words were just wasted hope. With that attitude, you can imagine my surprise when I said a prayer and caused an earthquake.

So these iron-coated buildings start shaking. The black rock streets start cracking. Everything's rumbling. We're right next to the desert, and nothing seems to be about to fall over out there, so I make a run for it. While I'm booking it, I hear Jasara say to me, "No, Demetheus! Stay in the city!"

I turn around, and see her split into a number of birds to avoid being crushed. So that's the last I hear from her for a while. I try to come to a stop, meaning to run back into that mess of a city, but instead I skid along the sand, spinning around and barely keeping my footing. Once I get moving I need some solid ground to stop, see. By the time I do, there's no city anymore. 

Yeah! I know it sounds crazy. I took a few steps outside the city into the desert, turn my head and suddenly it's all gone like it was never there. 

I call out, "Jasara!" I don't even hear an echo. Just a bit of wind throwing sand in my face. The green sun's in the same spot it's been every time I've looked. It's hot. I have all of the food and water, so I don't know what Jasara's going to do. I try to tell myself that she's a smart cookie, that she'll figure something out. But I don't really convince myself.

I sit down to think, frustrated and lost, and hit the sand pretty hard with how my mind was. So hard, the sand gives way, and suddenly I'm falling through this tunnel, covered in sand. I hit something hard with my head at the end of the fall and black out.

At the bottom of a sandfall's not the best place to lose your senses. You could get dusted over, stop breathing, and never come to. I needed some help, and Jasara wasn't there to bail me out this time. But somebody must have come along to help me, cause here I am.

I wake up yawning and there's this woman sitting next to my bed. She's dressed somewhere between a priestess and a high class call girl, and I'm looking at her thinking I'm still dreaming. Just my type, curvy in all the right places. She's saying "Finally coming around, I see". 

She reaches over and touches my head. I haven't really gotten my wits about me, so I ask, "What now?"

She goes on, "You're in a safe place, Demetheus. Relatively speaking. Don't get up too quickly, you've had a hard journey across the desert." She's looking up at nothing in particular, with that worst kind of religious rapture in her eyes. "It's ironic, actually. We've been reaching out to you for months. And yet here, all on your own, you've stumbled into our arms."

I'm not the quickest yeddim in the herd. I don't know who's arms she's talking about, or where they've been reaching. I'm just trying to find Jasara, ask if she's got enough notes yet, and be on my way. We're in some room that doesn't look anything like the buildings I just saw crash into each other. So I ask her, "What do you mean? Where am I?" 

She steps up to a window and spreads open a bit of cloth, "Here, let me show you. You're right where destiny's been leading you."

I look out the window and say, "Aww, hell." I'm right in the middle of the Demon city, looks like some kind of bazaar. This is the city I've been expecting; Demons are walking all over, shouting at each other, flying around, doing business. First thing, I'm worried about saying something wrong and causing all the buildings to fall over again. Second thing, I've never trusted anybody talking about destiny, reading the stars or tossing the bones. Fate and I don't seem to mix well; nothing happens the way other people say it will in my future. Back in Chiaroscuro, this homeless fortuneteller we shared some food with once told me my destiny. Said I'd catch the light just right one day and be consumed by a great fire. Well, that hasn't happened yet, and the way I've been fighting lately probably never will. Fate and I get along almost as bad as me and gods, to be honest. It was the same with my dream self. That guy I've told you about where I'm talking in this language I've never heard but understand, and I'm me but look and act different. Waking up in this place next to this woman is something I'd expect him to do, not me. 

Then she drops a number on me. "And when you've had your fill of the feast, I'll take you to the Skyless Cathedral."


	8. Ten Marks Rightward from Ligier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasara gets directions.

Jasara reappeared from her flight of separation atop a hill with no surrounding buildings. She scanned the wreckage, still falling, and the desert both, but saw no sign of Demetheus. She knew then that he had made it to the desert and would be on the journey in Cecelyne once again.

"Righteous Devil shoot my luck!" The old Delzhan curse made her feel better, but didn't improve her situation. She regretted, and not for the first time, never mastering the sworn brother's oath spell, so that she could keep track of her circle. They had a knack for wandering off.

They used to wander together in Faka-kun's circus. Back when Kidale was with them. Those happy times felt like another lifetime. When she had shared a simple meal as one of the five, a perfect circle of Solars, she felt invincible. How could they possibly have failed at anything? How had they come to where they were now? Separated across Creation and without, lost to one another.

Coming here was a mistake. She thought she was being prudent, checking up on her nightmares, securing their cage. She thought she had been cautious, reading everything she could about the Demon realms and bringing the best fighter she knew. But instead she had seen something unfamiliar and starting running headlong from the safe mundane into exotic danger just like her childhood, just like the ruins of Chariscuro. Worse, because this time she'd taken Demetheus with her.

Jasara's stomach growled. _None of that regret will matter if I don't take care of myself enough to find Demetheus again. I'll find him and leave. That is the best way to right this situation._

Easier said than done. By this time the buildings had stopped shaking and were settling with just the occasional weak aftershock. From her hilltop she spotted some movement down among the mess of basalt and iron. _A scavenger already?_

The Demon looked like a merman floating in the air, with a tail five times the length of its torso. Some kind of vapor licked at his body as he periodically swam down to scoop up a piece of iron. As Jasara watched he retrieved several such shattered pieces and considered each briefly before tossing it. A single small metal crab followed him from the ground. _Seems peaceful enough._

Jasara made her way to the Demon by foot. As she approached he looked up from his search and regarded her warily. Jasara spoke to it in Old Realm. "Hail, citizen. Could you direct me with a moment of your time?"

A smile accentuated his intelligent eyes and a lick of pride flicked through the Demon's tail. He signaled his understanding by replying, "Where would you like to go?"

Jasara's relief took the tension out of her shoulders she didn't know she was carrying. "I'd like to have a meal, where's the closest place to eat?"

"The Equitable Market is on this layer. Travel ten marks rightward of Ligier for a dozen miles, and you'll be on the outskirts."

Jasara was glad to have directions, but only understood half the units. "How much is a mark?"

The Demon waved to his crab, and the little metal thing skittered over to Jasara, then pincered her clothing, alternating from left to right, to climb up to her shoulder. From there it pinched her sleeve and lifted, so that her arm was pointed at the sun. Then it walked along her arm and raised her first finger. It held its pincer up for comparison, claw next to finger for measurement. Shaking from side to side momentarily, it raised her second finger next to her first, and measured the combination. It shook up and down briefly. Jasara was too stunned through the ordeal to resist.

"That much is a mark."

 _The more you know._ "Thank you, for the directions and the lesson. Good hunting." Jasara gently set down the small metal creature, bid the floating Demon goodbye, measured ten marks rightward from Ligier with two fingers held at arm's length, then set off for the Equitable Market.

\- - -

Once she was out of eyesight from the kindly demon and his metal friend, she wrote down everything she had seen about their appearance and nature in her notebook. _Even if I am leaving, writing down what I see on the way out can't hurt_. Then she measured and set off again.


	9. The Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demetheus breaks bread with Demonkind.

I'll say one thing about Demons - they really know how to put out a spread. All kinda nice food I'd only seen looking down from rooftops at guildsman before. The potatoes had this orange cinnamon butter on them that melted the old taste buds; I certainly had seconds of that. The shrimp had these blue crystals on them that looked like salt chunks but tasted like the the best kind of sea breeze. Sulumor, that's the lady's name I mentioned last time, told me they were water elemental shavings. I even tried some of the charred tyrant lizard. Tasted like chicken from one of those street vendors that make a big fuss about their open flames, but a bit gameyer. There was some weirder stuff, too, but I was stuffed long before I got to any of that.

And the drink! There was some kind of sweet fruit juice mixed up with real fine ice shavings - I asked how they kept the ice cold when it was so small, but Sulumor told me I didn't really want to know. The beer was dark and hearty, trouncing any brew I'd had Creation-side, and I've had my fill of just about every tavern between Marukan and the Lap. Then there was the wine. They said it was bone-fide celestial wine. Dunno how they snuck that out of heaven, but damned it I didn't appreciate that they did. 

I was sat at the head table, and there were about a dozen other folk that looked more or less human seated nearby. But the Demons were there by the hundreds. The room was square, with tables placed in a smaller square and breaks for the servers to dash through. In the large center space were these dancers - they were Demons too, Sulumor told me - that looked like silver fire that didn't burn from anything. They were spinning and hopping to some kind of harp music I'd never heard before. Probably 'cause the Demon playing the harp could hit about twenty notes all at once with the mess of fingers she had on both hands. 

The whole time Sulumor is feeding me this and that from the plates. Telling me how this one comes from the intestines of a hellboar or that one is boiled in quicksilver to give it that constant movement. When I looked about full, cause I sure felt it, she stood up and clapped her hands. The dancers pranced out, which left the center space between of all the tables open. Sulumor raised her hands and this well came right up out of the ground while we watched - burst right through the floor! Everybody clapped, and I joined along, though I didn't know what the trick meant. Then these rainbow-colored bugs started jumping out, and everybody around was catching 'em and eating 'em. Sulumor waved two over and they jumped up onto her hand like they were trained. She ate one herself and handed me the other. Seemed like the thing to do, so I bit into one. It tasted like hard candy, the kind shopkeeps would give the rich kids in the nicer parts of Chariscuro. Didn't have to steal this one; being handed to me made it taste even sweeter.

Then they put on a play. A child, played by some small Demon I didn't recognize, climbed out of the well and set the scene. It took place in the kid's room, where all the toys came to life when no adults were watching. When the toys tired of the child's games, they tried to escape the room, but the child wouldn't let them. So the toys put up a fight, and the little monster was like a giant among them. Heh, they had dolls charging on rocking horses, stuffed elephants stampeding, and toy soldiers marching in step. Some kinda magic was making it look so real, I got kinda wrapped up in the story. Lots of laughs and a few sniffles. After all the toys were broken, the child had a sad little monologue, then put the broken bits back together as the curtain dropped. The doll it managed to fix in that short bit of time jumped up from its hands and hugged the child's shoulder. Once the curtain hit the floor one of the elephants stuck its trunk out from under the bottom of the curtain and wiggled it a bit, so everything seemed alright. 

I haven't seen many plays myself, just a few put on by locals for anybody milling about the center of town. I'd seen enough to know they bow at the end to soak up the applause and kinda remind the folks watching that they're just people playing a part. While I was waiting on that the curtain opened back up but instead of the actors, or magical toys, or whatever you'd call 'em, there was this Demon as tall as the room. I didn't really take stock of the place before, but looking up at him I noticed just how tall the room was.

He introduced himself as Orabilis, the End of All Wisdom. Then he nods to Sulumor, and everybody gets the message that it's time to go. The feasters all get up and leave, the servants rush to clean the place, and Sulumor takes my hand. She tells me the Skyless Cathedral awaits. Like it's a thing that has feelings, not some stones sitting on top of one another like any other building.

Orabilis walks along with us. He says he's got a plan, one that he needs my help with. He spins a few of these floating orbs in front of him and they start making these moving pictures. He shows me some shadowlands I've been to in my wandering. He tells me about who lives there, and how they connect to the Underworld. Then he gets going on about the Labyrinth - that's kind of like the Underworld's underworld - ghosts even madder, surroundings even more filled with death essence. He says there in the Labyrinth are the corpses of his brothers and sisters, souls of the Neverborn, that are the legacy of the Primordial War. They're chained to reality but seek Oblivion, which is like a hole that once you fall in you can't get out of, and if any more Neverborn get made it could tip the balance and then the whole of Creation might just follow them down.

Those pictures were kind of scary, and I had to admit that losing Creation to some kind of bottomless pit didn't sound like the kind of future I had planned. So I asked him what he planned to do about it.

Orabilis put on this smile alot like Jasara does when I get where she's going with a story. He said the plan is to suppress all knowledge of how to kill gods and Demons, so that no more Neverborn are ever made. Mostly Exalted know how to do that, so we'd have to sway the god of exaltation, who helps them remember. I hadn't really signed on, but he kept being real inclusive with the we's and us's. He said we will need powerful allies with the freedom to roam Creation and Yu-Shan, like Sulumor and me. He says if I help them avoid the end of Creation, he could give me riches, power, slaves and secrets. And that there will be more than a few good fights along the way.

Speaking of fights, I asked if there were no hard feelings about the tussle in the desert. Orabilis told me those sand snakes had it coming messing with somebody my size. He said I was destined to be an unquestionable, that they were beneath me.

Sulumor jumped in about then all full of that religious energy saying, "Demetheus, once you accept, you'll be Orabilis' third akuma, the second time for your same Exaltation!"

I pause a moment. Even Jasara didn't come here to kill any demons, just make sure they were locked up tight. And neither Orabilis or Sulumor had said anything about freeing any Demons. That said, I know a whole lot about how motivating the threat of death can be to just about any negotiation. But if killing somebody got you killed too, seemed like most of the usefulness of that tactic was lost. And even though I've had my problems with gods, I didn't plan on killing any any time soon. All in all, people knowing how to kills gods and Demons didn't sound like it was the best thing to have as common knowledge. Plus, if they fed me like that every once in a while, doing a job here or there for them seemed like a damned good trade. The secrets and power and slaves would just be a bonus. 

And, you know, after thinking all that... I thought about signing up.


	10. The Equitable Market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasara goes shopping.

_Miles on an empty stomach across this blasted wasteland didn't_ sound _so hard at the outset._

Quiet and empty streets filled with the bizarre architecture of Malfeas passed by hardly noticed by the usually inquisitive Twilight. By the time Jasara made sight of the Equitable Market, her feet hurt from walking, her eyes watered from the miasma in the air, and she was well and truly hungry.

The sounds of the market were a welcome relief from the silent cityscape she'd just traversed. Old Realm filled the air, wheels creaked, Demonic animals brayed, and she even heard a set of horns playing an uptempo tune through it all.

Of the Old Realm she was able to catch - it was all being spoken so fast and fluently for a dead language! - she did hear the terms 'refreshments' and 'nourishment', which were close enough to her needs to pique her interest. Luckily the barker had a short and repeated phrase he or she used to lure business, so Jasara was able to follow the shouting to the Demon's storefront.

She saw the Demon lift a ladle, repeating its bark for custom, and quickly averted her eyes. The man-sized salamander with black plumage, dripping oils similar to Octavian, was a gethin, harvester of rarities. Jasara had read that after meeting a gethin's eyes, you could lose yourself for as long as it cared to hold you and use your own form for whatever purpose it or its summoner desired.

Jasara looked and listened to the rest of the market. Cutting the accent of this place's Old Realm was getting easier by the minute, but she heard or saw no other food vendors. She could abandon this stall and seek another, but there was no telling how long that would take. _Unconquered Sun preserve me._

Jasara walked to the gethin with eyes downcast.

Once within comfortable conversation range, Jasara asked, "How long has your stew been stewing?"

The gethin stopped his vendor barking, and spoke much more quietly to her. "Since the last clash of layers, unknown one. Would you like a sample?" It held out its ladle for her inspection.

Jasara wafted her hand over the liquid, sniffing the result. She was glad for her caution; the noxious smell set her into a coughing fit, and she had to put her hand against the nearest wall to stay standing. When she regained her composure, she remembered not to look too far up.

"I see it is unpalatable to you. Unknown one, tell me what you desire and this one will find it for you."

Jasara couldn't tell through the accent, the speed of its speech and unfamiliar phrasing, the Demonic body language, and the lack of seeing the gethin's face how sincere the offer was. _“Never trust a Demon,” the first words of the The Abscissic Guide._ She planned a ruse. "I have a human slave, and it constantly whines about hunger. I need a day's worth of food for an adult from Creation."

The Demon dropped the ladle in the stew then went behind the curtain separating its building from the storefront. Jasara smiled when she saw its hands reappear carrying a jar of clear liquid, probably water, two loaves of bread, and a wheel cheese.

"That'll be 20 motes, unknown one."

Jasara was happy to pay that price, but keeping with the ruse she decided to haggle. "I can get a whole new human slave for that price when this one fails to amuse me. How can one day's rations be worth that much?!” She hoped the prices she quoted were even halfway reasonable, and that she did not put too much sharpness behind her feigned disbelief. “I'll pay 10."

The gethin took a step back. "This one cannot find a human for less than 50 motes, and that'd be one of little worth, already used. 20 motes is my price."

 _Off the mark. At this point the less said the better._ "Fine, I'll pay 15; the creature won't last the week anyway in this air."

The merchant still hesitated. "Some demon gave up his freedom in Creation to lug this back to Malfeas. Have a heart, I must pay the fetching ones their due."

"And they probably carried much more than what you have here. 15."

"This one relents. 15, but only because you're a first time customer, unknown to me. Come back again when your slave hungers and thirsts, and we may come to know one another."

Jasara took the bread, water, and cheese, made sure to curl her nose up at the items despite salivating inwardly, and tucked them under her arm. The gethin gently touched her hand, and Jasara let the motes flow from her to it. When she appeared hardly drained, the gethin straightened and said, respectfully, “This one was pleased to serve you, unknown one.” Then she walked off, turning a few corners, then looked around, and listened. She could not hear the gethin's bark anymore, and thought it was safe to eat. Ripping the end of the loaf off with her teeth, not even waiting to chew before she brought the jar to her mouth. Plain bread and water had never tasted so good.

While she was eating, a commotion caused a snarl in the foot traffic of a road a block over, and Jasara, ever curious, went to see what it was, chewing all the while. She elbowed her way past a few tentacles and horns to get a better view. As she approached, an extremely tall Demon was walking with two smaller figures. She thought she recognized the gait of one of them, which was clearly impossible, unless she'd read about Demon gaits somewhere...? Thousands of books swirled in her head, but nothing definitive came from her memory.

Getting yet closer, she had to blink and look twice. It was Demetheus! He seemed to be talking with the Demons peaceably, but that could be even worse than fighting them, for the gethin was not the only one with a snare. She'd read innumerous warnings not to listen to Demons unless they were answering a very specific question you posed of your own volition. They could capture your soul and make you their puppet, and afterwards you'd thank them for the privilege.

Demetheus walked with the tall Demon, and some other figure Jasara could now barely see, across an open section of the city, interlaced sandstone bricks instead of the usual basalt, towards the tallest building in the Equitable Market Jasara had seen yet. Towering walls of brass with inward curving spires interlocked in some shape Jasara could not make out from her single angle. A river of quicksilver ran directly into the building and out again. Jasara did not know what business Demetheus had there, or even if he was going of his own will. Not knowing was filling her mind with terrifying possibilities.

Jasara ran over to the river, which the rest of the Demons seemed suspicious of, keeping their distance. Using a small sorcery she focused the surrounding motes to her command. On the quicksilver itself she wrote a message in Firetongue that Demetheus would see the next time he looked upon a reflective surface. "Demetheus, this is Jasara. I'm coming to save you."

She just hoped he remembered their reading lessons. That’s when the Demon’s hand reached out from the quicksilver and pulled her under.


	11. Bostvade, the Quicksilver Highway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jasara breaks Demetheus out from the Skyless Cathedral.

Last time I left you, I told you I was thinking this deal over. I know that look - you think I might have taken it, that I might be some Demon worshipper. Well, I'm not here to give you the good word about Orabilis today. Instead, let me tell you how I got out of there.

Those two had been going on about how great it was to be unquestionable. Once we got in this big temple, they pointed up and a bunch of words scrawled on the walls of this small temple held up in the air inside the building, at least I think that's what the pictures were. Why anybody needed a temple inside a temple didn't make sense to me, but I just chalked it up to Demons treating religion just as oddly as humans. They were reading things like, "An unquestionable may take without payment any possession not owned by another unquestionable or a Yozi," and "An unquestionable is due at least a dozen prayers at each gong of the hourly bell, to be provided by the Hidden Judges of the Secret Flame, in addition to any other Cult they may succor." It could have been some merchant's ledger for all I could make it out, so I just nodded and said that's great.

As full as I was from that feast earlier, I interrupted to ask where these unquestionable relieve themselves. Orabilis was quick to say, "Anywhere they please," but Sulumor just took my hand and pulled me over to this hole in the floor. It wasn't very private, especially with Sulumor lookin' on, but I've seen worse arrangements. After I was done, it looked like the building moved like it was swallowing. But that couldn't'a been it, probably just some of that fine celestial wine going to my head.

Sulumor took me over to a basin to wash up. I put my hand down towards the water and I saw this message, in good old Firetongue, like Jasara and I had been practicing, saying, "Demetheus, this is Jasara. I'm coming to serve you." 

And as soon as I read them, they were gone. That didn't make a lick of sense to me. How did those words get there? What would Jasara serving me even mean? We were friends, not master and slave. I knew some street singers that went on about 'serving' when they belted their sing-song shouts at each other, but that made even less sense. I washed my hands and face, wondering just how weird today was going to get. Then I remembered that the sun didn't even go down here, so I couldn't even keep a tally.

When I got back, Sulumor following me and Orabilis waiting on us both, that big Demon in his booming voice said, "It is time for the Investiture of Infernal Glory."

Sulumor startled a little bit, and ran ahead of me, "Orabilis, my peer, I don't think now is the right time. I suggest - "

Orabilis nodded at Sulumor, and one of those little balls flying around him made its way over to Sulumor, kind of shimmied a bit and blinked outta sight. After that I saw Sulumor's mouth moving but didn't hear any of what she was saying. Orabilis said then, leaning over to me, "You won't find it written on the temple of the Skyless Cathedral, but there are ranks even within the unquestionable."

He pulled back up to his full height, an’ that was pretty high, and boomed, "Demetheus of the Unconquered Sun! You have been chosen for the honor of the Investiture of Infernal Glory. Pledge your life and your will to me, Orabilis, and you will be remade as a perfect vessel for the Reclamation! After our glorious victory, no force will pose a threat to Creation, not the Unshaped, not the ravages of time, or even the Void itself! You will have a privileged place in this order. Do you accept?"

Now, I consider myself a pretty nice guy. I help a fella out here and there when it's not too far outta my way. I'd share the road with a friend if they ask nice enough, like I’ve been doing with Jasara. But what this guy Orabilis was asking, this whole 'remaking' stuff, sounded pretty far out. Sure I'd seen some shadowlands, but before today I'd never heard of the Neverborn, or Oblivion, or the Void. For all I know they were just spinning stories to scare me into service, like some kind of conscription scam that goes on all the time in the Threshold when some lord needs a lot of little folk to go die for something he cares about way too much. I didn't make it here falling in with that kind of trick, so I told him no.

I say to him, "Orabilis, that sounds great, but I think I'd rather just find Jasara and be on my way."

Orabilis, he doesn't take the news too well. He tensed up, and the whole place started rocking. Earthquakes and that place were just an everyday thing. I don't know how any of those buildings were still standing by the time I got there.

Sulumor, though, she steps inbetween us and says, "Orabilis, I told you. Let's keep him until he sees the light."

I didn't much like hearing talk about me being 'kept', but before I knew it Orabilis waved his hand and I was tossed up into the air. I landed in a mess of those little balls of his, caught might be more like it, and they spun up into a cage. I could still see Orabilis and Sulumor and the rest of the folks in this temple, but I couldn't hear them any longer. Just some low whine, like a bunch of flies buzzing about my head.

Things got real boring about then. I gave my cage a good punch, but I didn’t even connect with anything. It just kinda jumped out of the way. I tried walking out; the cage floor just spun around to the wall, then the ceiling, wall again and back to the floor without me going anywhere. All the Demons I could see just kept about their business like I wasn't there. Sulumor and Orabilis left. Just some temple with words I couldn't read, some odd silver river flowing through the place, and Demons coming and going, praying and talking to one another. So I laid down and had a nap.

When I woke up, Jasara's shaking my shoulder, dripping on me. The river wasn't on the floor of the building anymore, it ran right up to my cage and back out again, like the bars weren't even there. Jasara was kneeling there next to me, soaked. I say to her, "I must be dreaming."

Jasara says to me, real quick like, "This is no dream, Demetheus. I've swam the river Bostvade to get to you. It's a whole other world in there! So vibrant and unlike Malfeas himself. I must go visit the forests of Szoreny someday, I bet they're gorgeous, better than any description I've read. Did you know Bostvade hides a whole other Demon society, one I've never read of! Why, there must be dozens, no _hundreds_ \- !"

By this time, I've woken up. Jasara in my dreams says some weird things, but they're always things I've heard her say before, that I'd know how to say again. That didn't square with Bostvade and Szoreny. I decide she's not a dream, she's Jasara in the flesh, as full of strangeness as ever. I say to her, "Yeah, yeah. How do you plan to get us out?"

"The same way, Demetheus. Hurry before Bostvade shifts again."

So we both jump in.


	12. The Return Trek

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Demetheus and Jasara trek back to Creation.

Jasara and Demetheus stood at Cecelyne's edge, grains of sand blowing slowly over the basalt streets. Jasara was pleased to be here, but displeased with the method of navigation. After they emerged from Bostvade, they were both lost in the city of Malfeas. Jasara had wanted to ask directions, but Demetheus said he'd prefer not to have either of their faces seen if they could help it. When Jasara asked how they'd get to Cecelyne, Demetheus said it'd be like finding any desert, by smell. Just sniffing the air and going where there was less humidity should have led them to a local minimum, not their destination. It was lucky, and it was inefficient, and worst of all it worked.

Jasara let that childish pique leave her thoughts. Now they had to brave the desert with no water or food, as they lost all their supplies in Malfeas itself. Demetheus wouldn't be bothered by it because he could be supported by his Essence. Jasara would have to find some other way to make due; the last of her water and cheese had been soaked in quicksilver. She doubted even her Solar constitution could handle that kind of quicksilver exposure, so she’d left the soggy remains in Bostvade. 

If she had the materials, she could construct a sorcerous device to pull any ambient water from the air. Assuming the air in Cecelyne even had water motes in its makeup. Assuming the miasma of Malfeas didn't foul the water beyond potability. Assuming her design was correct. It was a lot of assumptions, and she didn't have the materials anyway. But water would be a problem before the five days passed, so she couldn't help but think about solutions. Specifically material substitutions when Demetheus interrupted her train of thought.

"Jasara, I don't think that sand looks natural."

Jasara kept her head down and kept walking. "Demetheus, I'm trying to think through my water problem. I've seen enough of Malfeas and Cecelyne both, so I'd like to keep the destination of Creation firmly in mind to not extend our journey, compounding the water issue further."

"That's all well and good, but I think you should take a look anyway."

Jasara reluctantly looked where Demetheus pointed, off to their left in the distance. At a glance, the sand of Cecelyne appeared to be moving. Jasara continued to stare, looking for the telltale signs of mirage, but did not see any. Instead she began to make out shapes. In the same color of the sand were creatures, hundreds of them, all shapes and sizes: vultures with seven wings, scorpions the size of cats, hounds with three heads and five tails running in packs, camels with fangs that breathed fire, sand yeddim, desert stryx, unnatural mixes of each, and still smaller ones she couldn't discern. More sand creatures than all the descriptions of any demonic tome Jasara had ever read.

Demetheus put his fists up as the horde of desert creatures approached, partially obscured by a dune. Jasara asked him, "Could you fight that many?"

Demetheus kept his eyes on the crest of the dune where he expected the demons to reappear, grinning. "Whether I can or I can't, we're about to find out."

Instead of a stampede, a sole figure emerged atop the sand in their view. Humanoid in gait but bestial in visage, he held his clawed hands at his sides, unarmed as he approached. He addressed them in Firespeak.

"I am Visiryl, Many Hearts of the Desert, Eighth Soul of Cecelyne. You have disgraced my Messenger and Warden souls in combat. For that, I will send your bright souls on to new bodies as vengeance. Remember in your new lives the might of Cecelyne, and do not return."

Jasara memorized the Demon's words, name, title and form. She dared not bring her notebook out, but desperately wanted to. As she finished her memorization mnemonic, the question of how to respond briefly occupied her mind, but as usual Demetheus charged forward absent contemplation.

"I like the body I have just fine, buddy. Take a swing and you'll get more 'disgrace in combat' an' nothing else!" 

To this provocation Visiryl let forth a roar echoed by the sand beasts. His army crested the sand dune from behind him, charging forward on hoof and claw and wing. Demetheus lowered his stance, raised his fists a little higher, and waited for their approach. Jasara began the phrases of the flight of separation, but never finished. Shocked out of her concentration on the well-worn words of power, Jasara gaped as the first rank of Demons slammed into something invisible, yelping and cawing their displeasure.

Visiryl passed the invisible barrier without effort, looking around at the empty air instead of the two confused Solars. He bellowed in Old Realm, "Sogahsree, show yourself!"

A robed figure of ambiguous gender with a shaven head and frail shoulders colored itself into being just out of Visiryl's reach. "I am here, Visiryl. You need not shout."

"What is the meaning of your interference?"

Demetheus asked Jasara, hands still at the ready, but stance less sure than before, "What're they saying, Jasara?"

Jasara put her finger to her mouth asking Demetheus to be silent, focusing all her attention on this meeting of Demons. She'd be cited for her description of this for centuries!

"You know the meaning, but have chosen to forget. Your souls have the answer, you need only look. It should be easy with two fewer to inspect."

_Ooh, rubbing sand in the wound._

"To hell with your riddles, answer me plainly."

"Very well. In our surrender oaths we named our jailers, the Exalted. In the Hierarchy it is the place of the imprisoned to suffer and the place of the keymasters to punish us as they wish. We live only by their mercy, and we chose this existence over becoming those never born. So it is written upon all of our souls."

"You take the oaths too literally, like everything else, like all the souls in the Descending Hierarchy of She Who Lives in Her Name. Things change, if you'll allow yourself to see it. These golden ones are mere flickers of their former selves. I refuse to grovel to them as we had to in the past to their ancestors."

"Things do change; I can see that Visiryl. I remember Zen-Mu and the Time of Glory. Our status will change once again upon the Reclamation, of course. But that change has not yet come about."

Visiryl sat down, defeated by Sogahsree's logic. He waved one hand in dismissal, and all the desert creatures buried themselves in the sand. A wind blew across the desert, shifting the dunes to hide their burrows. Sogahsree nodded, and looked pleased. It turned to the Solars and spoke to Jasara in the same language it addressed its peer, the language of sorcerers, the first language, Old Realm.

"Please forgive Visiryl and any other Demon for the trouble we've caused you during your visit to the Demon realm. We remember our place and need no reminder of it. I hope you found what you came for, and I wish you safe travel back to Creation. I cannot speed the journey across Cecelyne, but please take this as recompense."

A pack very much like the one they began their journey with, filled with water and provisions, including even their sleeping mats, colored itself into existence next to Demetheus. Demetheus looked even more confused, but Jasara nodded him reassurance, so he shouldered the pack.

Jasara bowed her head in the manner of a superior pleased by her subordinate. "This token we accept." She said no more, for she did not know how the asked forgiveness would be interpreted if she supplied it.

Sogahsree turned its back on the Solars and began walking away. Visiryl snorted from his seat in the sand, gave the Exalted both one heated look, then stood and stalked after his peer.

As soon as they fell below the dune, Jasara pulled the notebook from her person and flipped to the first blank page, writing as fast as her hands would allow.

Demetheus, again, interrupted her, but this time she flatly ignored him. "What in the hell...?"


	13. The Marked Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next journey begins.

So after all that nonsense talk, Jasara takes out her notebook and doesn't speak to me for a few hours. I look out for those sand creatures, even digging a bit to see where they went off to, but couldn't find any. Jasara was being her sorcerer self, creeping me out. She kept on repeating 'Reclamation?' like it was supposed to mean something, but the way she was saying it I could tell it didn't just yet.

She slammed that little book shut, got up as abruptly as she sat down, gave me a smile that told me she was back to her cheerful self and said, "Sorry for the delay, Demetheus. The rest of the journey should be uneventful; I daresay even pleasant."

True to her prediction it was. We were just as alone on rest of the journey out as we were on the first day going in. We woke up in the East, made it to this here small town before sundown, and shared a drink, in this same tavern. A lot less talking and a lot more thinking, though. Honest, I didn't want to hear what was turning the gears in Jasara's head. I was half afraid if I asked that we'd turn right back around and I'd end up in Yu-Shan this time. She left the next day after thanking me again, said she was off to do some writing. I stuck around; that trip got the traveling bug outta me.

But that's enough about me. A good travelling story can get me going for hours. And these drinks have been top notch, thanks again for buying all the rounds. Why don't you tell me a little about yourself? What's your name?

_**I am the Marked Wolf. I had another name once, but I lost it on a trip to the place where ghosts go mad. Perhaps I'll tell you that story sometime, if you can do me a favor. Some young pups in my pack think they can wrestle the whole world to the ground, the muscle-bound ignorants. You look like just the golden man to scuff them up and teach them that there is always a better fighter in the world. Are you up to the challenge? I can promise to tell the stories of my people during our travel, all the food you care to eat, and many more rounds wherever we stay.** _

Y'know, my feet were itching to leave about now. Guard duty puts enough silver in my pocket but damned if it isn't boring. You've been the most fun I've had since Jasara moved on. Well, with my clothes on, anyway. Most folks around these parts wouldn't let me get past the first few minutes of that story before walking off thinking I was making it all up. And the militia could probably handle the stray Fae or two after the pointers I gave 'em. So sure, why not?


	14. Pieces and Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hand of Fate revealed.

A woman dark of skin with short curly hair held from her downcast face by a starmetal circlet stared into a puddle of quicksilver held by a silver dish. To most the reflection would be no more than that woman's own face, but she had weaved the Essence of the Mercury into it, and it showed her scenes as they played out from far away. One showed a slender woman writing with unnatural speed upon an empty tome by candlelight, soon to be filled with descriptions of Malfeas. Another showed a muscle-bound man sleeping off the night's liquor.

 _Sogahsree has done its job, and the Solars have returned._ The favor she paid to make this so, to gain the audience needed to remind the Demons what happened when they antagonized Solars, had been steep in price. Summoning enough Demons to orchestrate the entire Sonata of Her Excellence The Ten Thousand, taking no less than a century to play, at a specific part of the wilderness of the North would slow down several of her schemes and tax her Essence. Demons always had the strangest preconditions. It would cause snarls in the loom for centuries, snarls that her operatives would have to solve without official sanction to keep the source of it all quiet, and in territory she did not control just for added spice. But it would all be worth it to keep those two Solars from being reborn, perhaps with an unhealthy preoccupation with tormenting the already vanquished rather than strengthening Creation against threats much more pressing.

She waved her hand and the scene she saw changed. Kether Rock replaced a tavern in the East, and what the woman saw there curled her lips upward - at odds with the full-eyed, blinkless stare she pointed at the pool. The fortress of granite, flying their gold and black banner, surrounded by caked dirt broken by a few, small, heavily irrigated fields, looked well in order. Robed figures dripped sweat into the Southern sands as they sparred against one another. A raiding party prepared to depart.

 _They did so much better than the last two who drifted off to Malfeas._ After that debacle, she kept a much closer eye on all the Solars whose strands had missing parts, and she felt like she had come to know them. That knowledge would be an edge on swaying them to serve the Cult of the Illuminated. Kether Rock may suit Demetheus' sentiments, and the new location Gracious Shaia had been given leave to found might suit Jasara's, curious as she was about other cultures. _Ah, but splitting them might cause problems if they've bonded too closely._ She'd have to check how intertwined their threads had become.

"Your grace, Yo-Ping awaits you in your receiving study."

She responded in a welcoming chipper to her godservant, "I'll be right there, Mansari!" The Loom would have to wait, always another matter to attend.


End file.
